Bottoms Up

Made it out to Kelley Brewing in Manteca (that’s out on the edge of the Central Valley, about 80 miles east of San Francisco last Saturday to sample the second beer made commercially with a 45-million-year-old yeast.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know what I mean: Quick version: microbiologist Raul Cano, founder of the Environmental Technology Institute at Cal Poly in San Luis Obisbo, isolated the yeast from a piece of ancient amber from Burma.

Cano, another microbiologist, Chip Lambert, and an Oakland attorney, Scott Bonzell, have formed Fossil Fuels Brewing Co. Their idea; produce commercial beers using one of the ancient yeasts revived by Cano in his lab. The resuscitation has been replicated, Lambert says, in his sterile XOMA lab in Berkekeley. And for the skeptical, the whole process has been peer reviewed and published in Science. they told me.

First, this is the Web and people reading this have NO TIME – the news: Joe Kelley, who brewed the beer, said he made a classic wheat beer: 40 percent pale barley malt, with a touch of Munich malt and 50 percent winter wheat. Before fermentation, split the wort (the unfermented sweet liquid made by mashing in malted wheat and barley in hot water, then boiling it with hops.) in two.

One half was fermented with his regular wheat beer yeast, the other half was fermented with Cano’s resuscitated, ancient yeast.

I tried the two in a side-by-side tasting. Yikes. It was a bit like science fiction; I’m a mere journalist who has drunk a lot of beer, so I’m far, far, from a trained brewer. But the two beers were utterly different. They didn’t look the same; they were different colors and the taste was different.

The regular wheat was a cloudy gold. Taste was malty, nice, full mouth feel, bit of spice in the follow. Nice beer, perfect after a long day on the broiling streets of Manteca where 100 degree F. days are common in the summer.

The ancient wheat. Well, it was different: light copper color with an intense clove aroma,. like a German heferweizen. It tasted like a really nice wheat, full, lots of spice, with those cloves always present. Then, just at the end of the finish, there was an intriguing, very odd spicy note. Here in America, we automatically say “Belgian” because there’s a kind of weirdness in the taste. Spice? Herbs? Earth? All of those. It made me think “Belgian.”

Now, I have two reasons to go to Manteca: to eat another pulled pork sandwich, made in the Kelley Brewing’s barbeque, which is a replica of the original barbecue conceived in Berkeley 75 years ago by the Kelley brothers grandfather and his next-door neighbor Trader Vic Bergeron. Yes, THAT Trader Joe. Same deep pit barbecue, same absolutely incredible ‘que. The pulled pork’s to die for. Five Stars.

Reason two: The Fossil Fuels Wheat. If they can capture this in a bottle they have a winner. Or do they: Dunno. The difference is subtle and we’re living in an unsubtle era: a time of imperial beer.

Cano and Lambert, meanwhile, hope to supply the beer in kegs to Bay Area pubs. As I said last month, last summer, a friend Peter Hackett, of Stumptown Brewing, Guerneyville (on the Russian River 50 miles north of San Francisco) made a test batch of pale ale using the ancient yeast side by side with a pale ale made with modern yeast.
There were some striking differences, Lambert says. The test batch had an almost Belgian note with hints of clove, he says.

Yup.

Now, they’re hoping to brew the pale ale as well. And here’s wishimg them much luck. The story’s so weird an interesting that the Washington Post is doing a story soon. Hopefully, that will fuel more interest.

Quickly, back to the beer. Joe Kelley says it was a most unusual yeast, It worked very, very vigorously. He fermented at 68 degrees and when it was finished the yeast floculated in big clumps tha floated up to the top of the beer like laundry detergent.

He’s eager to try the yeast with a Scottish style Wee Heavy.

Photos: Top: Fossil Fuels Brewing founders, Scott Bonzell, left, Raul Cano, Chip Lambert. Below: The wheat beer made at Kelley Brewing with resuscitated 45-million-year old yeast. Bottom: The two wheats, the beer at right, was made with the ancient yeast.